300!

Starcraft influenced my life more than you could imagine! Not because I am loving the game so much, but because I love my wife so much. I met my wife at a New Year's Eve party...and a few weeks later we had our first official date, in which I brought my computer, a null modem cable and Starcraft to her appartment. She had played C&C with her brother a bit and age of empires type games, but her love of sci-fi made her take to Starcraft right away...and a hot redhead who enjoyed sci-fi, gaming, and being with me...check, check, and CHECK! We had to buy two copies of Diablo because the spawn for that game only allowed you to play together to a certain level. Starcraft showed me how much I loved being with her and I like to thank similar feeling for her so we are together because she did not think I was a geek for having a lan party first date...or well she thought I was a lovable geek maybe!!


http://www.giantbomb.com/images/1300-1452864

For me, I had always loved video games ever since I was born (in 1981), playing atari from as young as I can remember and then getting a computer when I was 5 and playing public domain games that we would get from the library on that until I was 13y/o and we got a gateway with win3.1 and it opened up a whole other world of video games to me. But even still, no game did to me what Torment did to me. I had played LOTS of games up until Torment, including Fallout, but only upon playing Torment did I realize that video games were/could be pieces of art and weren't "just" entertainment - just like a great novel or a masterpiece movie, they could have more to offer than just a fun thing to do for many spare hours. At that time I was 16-17 years old and was quite mature for my age and wasn't like other kids where I grew up (I was a freak loner and took life very seriously, when kids were going out having fun and being teenagers, I was studying film and ethics.) If Torment hadn't been part of my experience at the time, I very likely could have just given up video games as part of my life altogether (I soon moved away to college and life took many changes), but it was so mature and up my alley, it opened my eyes to the truth about video games (again, that they could be just as wonderful pieces of art as other mediums offered.) It's the game I credit without question to be the game that kept me "in the loop" and interested rather than them being a part of life that tapered off because of other interests taking precedence.

A huge point I forgot to mention about this:

It also made me want to REPLAY all of the games I had previously played (or a lot of them anyway) to see them for their artistic value which I had not been aware of upon playing them the first time. I never replayed any games up until that point, they were one and done experiences that I (obviously now) had missed so much in and Torment made me want to go back and see what I had missed. I replayed Full Throttle, GK2, interstate '76, and most importantly, Fallout 1+2. It was only upon replaying Fallout 1+2 did I appreciate them as much as I do now as masterpieces of art in the genre of video games. I LOVED Fallout when it came out and I played it, it was dark, humorous, post-apocalyptic, had so many movie references, and really itched a spot for me, but only upon replaying did I truly ascertain its value in my life. And that is thanks to Torment.

I think that had I played Fallout for the 1st time at the time in life that I played Torment the first time, it would be the game I'm mentioning here, but the difference in my appreciation for art and writing from age 15 to age 16 is why Torment is the one.

300! I´m in for #1.

The game that first impress me was Street Fighter 2. I remember to watch other people play i i found it awesome. Then i started to play with Dhalsim, i choose him because his arms and legs can be elongated, so he have more attck range XD. I only have 12 years i think, he was my favorite character, but the time passed. Today my favorite is Ryu,but as allways my butt is still been kicked :P

300!
Wow! Congratulations, and may you raise 300 more! :-)

The very first game I saw running on my brand new PC was Prince of Persia. Now, this was a few cuts above Chuckie Egg and the other 8-bit games I knew at the time. The use of moody colors, how the game filled the entire screen (it was not so with a ZX Spectrum), the big character sprites! And just look how the prince moves! WOW! :-O The beautiful rotoscoped animations were amazing! *_*
It spoiled me forever!

I'm posting an [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Prince_of_Persia_%281989_video_game%29_IBM_PC_Version_gameplay.gif]animated GIF from Wikipedia[/url].

I'd be in for Bad Mojo Redux then, if I may. That game caught my attention the minute I saw it. :-)
Thank you.

While I find the whole HoMM series very fascinating and I even own all 1-5 (but not Chronicles) I have to admin that I'm really too dumb to get anywhere in these games. I always reach the point where some enemy with his super-stack just marches in and takes everything I have..., I don't seem to get the balance between expanding and building. When I play less aggressively I will last longer but some bigger opponent will simply outproduce me with his 3x as many cities, when I play more expansive I will have lost of weaklings scattered around the map and everything will fall apart like a house of cards when an enemy (or several) with powerful armies are marching in.

The trick to HoMM is to have weak heroes act as supply chains and to find magic spells that let you take down bigger armies than you'd ordinarily be able to.

Nice one. Thief is obviously one of the most influential games. I think lots and lots of games owe Looking Glass and Thief a big one.
For me personally this game made me want to play stealthy characters in every 3D/first person game that offered the possibility. Before that I would prefer something like Battle Mage (tough in melee and powerful ranged spells) - thats how I played Morrowind. But I had lots of fun playing Oblivion and Skyrim as sneaky snipers - there's simply nothing like the tension of trying to cling to the shadows while creeping forward to a position that lends itself for a critical one hit kill, all the while listenening for approaching footsteps of some patrolling enemy that I might have overlooked.
I must admit that I never finished Thief - some areas just give the creeps (like the haunted part of the city with that lobster creatures). I somehow couldn't bridge the gap between cool Garret and myself nearly shitting my pants. I had less problems with playing Riddick.

300! @1
[url=http://ilarge.listal.com/image/1577265/968full-system-shock-2-screenshot.jpg]Shock 2
This game had almost all elements that I like in a game: shooter, rpg, story, survival, horror, cyberpunk, one of the best villain ever etc

Congrats on reaching 300 and big thanks for your generousity!

There are some good strategy guides out there, in HoMM websites and even in the GOG subforum, where you can find some good tips. One important thing is to have more than one heroe in the beginning. Is very important to explore as fast as possible, so you can have the neutral castles before your opponents and have resources (mines) quicker.

I didn't really like Underground, mainly because of the rubberband AI - a "feature" I really detest and the reason I didn't try Test Drive Unlimited 2. The other reason is, yeah well call it elitism ;-). I'd rather have super expensive and rare sports cars like the Isdera Commendatore 112i (featured in NFS2). I can relinquish tuning options, although I can understand the appeal of "leveling up" you vehicle.

Actually, from a driving model point of view I prefer "semi-realistic", just like TDU or NSF: Porsche Unleashed.
Very nice post, thank you!

I totally agree. Torment is one of those games for sure that can be eye-openers for people that have not yet realized that games are art too. As I said, it's one of my all time favourite games. Maybe it didn't have that big perspective-shifting impact on me because I've been around playing a little longer than you. I think the first game where I consciously realized I was dealing with a piece of art was Loom, although I think the prominent artistic value goes back to the days of the text adventure.

I know that theory :-)

I've read guides to no end, but I seem to be to dumb to make it past the half of the larger levels. Maybe my managing skills are just underdeveloped (although I used to be quite good in MoO and MoM).

But hey, every few years I give HoMM another try. And a have to friends who are fans of the series. Maybe I should recruit one of them as Mentor/Tutor until I get the hang of it.

Great giveaway. Thanks! :D

Not in.

congrats for the rep! thanks for your generosity, +1
I'm not in

Care to join the discussion anyway?

:-)

Of course it makes sense that any number of games can do that for people, and of course art in games has been around long before Torment, which is why I went and replayed so many games after! I missed Loom back when, I'm quite certain the Electronics Boutique where I grew up never had it because I never even heard of it until a couple years ago and I was always aware of everything they had in the store and which of them I wanted. The LucasArts games were always top games for me, so I probably would have picked it up in an instant had I seen it at any point. I'm anxiously awaiting its release here (though I probably won't be able to buy any games until midsummer when crops start coming in.) Text adventures certainly have art to them, I played sooo many text-adventures on my 0x86 between 1986 and 1992, and I don't know the names to any of them any more, but the Zork series was unforgettable and holds a special place for me as well, and did so before I had played Torment and I would have thought it was just because they were SO COOL and complex and my name starts with Z and so I felt kinship at a young age, but only upon reflection did I realize they had such an impact because of their artistic value.

Another thing Torment did for me was make me part of a game forum community for it back then. I'd never even thought of using the internet for anything related to games, and then I found a Torment forum and had some really great discussions with people. One of whom became a very close friend and we ended up playing Dark Age of Camelot together for 4 years. We've had a falling out since then, but still, it was an important part of life.

This is a great thread, thanks for hitting 300 and starting it! Very cool to read everyone's experiences and influences.